JoWooD - Gothic for Consoles?

Liezen, Austria, April 26th 2007; JoWooD Productions Software AG decided to take the next step and advance to the current generation of consoles. JoWooD intends to publish the group’s most successful brands on new platforms. Due to the Dreamcatcher buyout, the Austrian Publisher has many brands at hand for expansion on to the “new” current generation of consoles (Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3). After the great worldwide success of our products Gothic, SpellForce, Painkiller and Dungeon Lords it’s a pleasure for JoWooD to release further content on current-gen systems. JoWooD is convinced of its ability to successfully position the new games in the console market. The Console-market is one of the fastest growing segments of the entertainment industry with approximately 11 million units of Xbox 360 and 3,5 millions of the PS3 sold so far.

JoWooD already started to negotiate with development studios and scheduled the first releases at the end of 2008, beginning of 2009.

About JoWooD Productions Software AG
JoWooD Productions Software AG (ATXPrime: JWD) is listed in the Prime Market segment of the Vienna stock exchange. JoWooD is a leading publisher of computer- and videogames, releasing international acclaimed, high-qualitiy titles for all existing and future gaming systems. The JoWooD games are distributed worldwide by an efficient net of distribution partners. For more information, visit http://corporate.jowood.com

Gothic and some of Jowood's other games would likely be a welcome addition to the XBOX crowd as it appears to me to only have shooters of one type or another plus Oblivious.

The biggest problem to this is that Jowood would appear to have no concept of quality control whatsoever, which just doesn't fly on consoles, even with the possibility to patch on consoles. Not to mention, I really doubt that they could shoehorn Gothic 3 into the small resource pool available to consoles, after all most people reported requiring 1G of RAM for anything approaching decent performance, and 1.5+G for best performance. (I had 2G, so it worked out fine for me, along with a decent CPU x2 4800+ and decent GPU 7600GT KO which managed to run G3, NWN2, and Oblivious at high settings @ 1280x1024.)

I think that they could expand the size of their development team if the were going to develop for consoles. The Gothic games are huge and I read somewhere that the devevelopment team only has like 20 people on it. I think that a lot of the bugginess can be attributed to trying to make a very ambitious game for such a small cost. I usually don't like porting to consoles, but I think that in this case, it would make the PC versions better.

Seriously, the gothic games came, saw, and conquered. Web-site forums flowered into existence as the word spread, the grapevine became alive, there was revolution in the air…..but now the halcyon days are over, the heyday is no more.

Maybe Jowood is 'clutching at straws' with this latest marketing ploy and yet i suppose there will be some casual console newbie takers…time will tell how many.

The sum of the whole approach is a well proven sales tactic where a small profit from each of the sub re-releases, Gothic, Spellforce, Painkiller and Dungeon Lords etc' together can add-up to a handsome grand total. If it can be done at all…..then Jowood is the big daddy to pull it off.
………………………………………….. ..
i can see it now……

"hey! dad"
"yes son"
"iv'e got the gothic game on my console"
"really…how far have you got"?
"well, this Diego guy says i have to do a test of faith…and i am stuck"
"no problem son, just go to Graham, buy a map and make your way to the old mine"
"wow, dad, how did you know that?"
"er… (cough) i read about it somewhere, oh and watch out for the minecrawlers"

Originally Posted by Corwin
The thought of DL trying for Xbox 360, is too funny to really appreciate!!

Can't you see?!?!? This could be DL's savior!! JoWood would have to pay DWB to finish the game so the consoles would take it! It's all falling into place! All the spells and skills working! The sloppy parts cleaned up! More quests! More lands! The fabled "caves" etc. on the game box that aren't in the game! Yeeeesssssss….. my preccccssioooussssss….

*begins to rock back and forth in the corner, drooling and smiling maniacally*

For starters they 'feel' very much like they should be on the console anyway, in terms of the controls. Secondly the enforced QA (and most likely they would recieve additional resources for QA from console makers directly) would do them a world of good.

I'm only surprised it's taken this long for it to be considered (that we know of).

For starters they 'feel' very much like they should be on the console anyway, in terms of the controls. Secondly the enforced QA (and most likely they would recieve additional resources for QA from console makers directly) would do them a world of good.

+1

I'm only surprised it's taken this long for it to be considered (that we know of).

We´ve seen JoWooD mention console versions of their primary franchises several times before. The question nobody answers publically is "Who owns all the different parts of the Gothic franchise?". This means brand, name, world, scenario, distribution rights (for how long?), development rights, characters, etc.
Would JoWooD be able to greenlight a Gothic game without PB´s agreement? I don´t know but I doubt it. Just have a look at the copyright notice on a Gothic produxt of your choice since G2.

The latest official word from PB, by project lead Björn Pankratz in a podcast after the Austrian Game Awards 1 or 2 weeks ago:
PB is not working on a console product. They didn´t even carefully evaluate what needs to be done to convert G3, which makes a conversion to XB360 unlikely. Their technology is made for PC. They have nothing against consoles though. A later game could be multi-platform. Furthermore he said something which had to be understood in a way that they are not working on Gothic 4 yet. (Sounds like an add-on then. )
The usual caveat: It´s not clear how much he was allowed to say and how much he wanted to say. I also might have remembered a few things incorrectly.